Funny dive stories

[MikeFerrara]

Spent the last couple of days reading all the accident reports. It was a brutal weekend and it's getting kind of depressing so how about some stories of dive mishaps where there were only laughs and no injuries?


We were on a single tank wreck dive in Lake Michigan. My wife did a real nice giant stride off the boat. She's not very big anyway but the Capt. remarked how she didn't even make a splash. She signaled "ok" as she turned to face us and quietly asked if some one could please hand her fins down to her.

[michaelp68]

I bumped my head into a picnic table in a lake this past weekend. Probably used during the ice fishing season before it 'settled' to the bottom where some day I'd be swimming along....

[GERRY2153]

When i did my oper water test, the viz was a little bit limited ( like pea soup in the blender) for the firs 10-15 feet, there were four of us with the instructor, he was the leader, and each of us was holding on to the one in front's gauge console so not to get lost. Everyone signaled ready, the instructor went down followed by the first and second students, the third guy looked back at me and says " are we supposed to have our fins on?" .... ahhhh yea ....and told him that he better give a tug on the line to get the others back up...... he later made a really good decision and bailed on the rest of the test.

[BungyJumper]

I did my PADI AOW class in Cozumel in late May. I did all the "knowledge reviews" and reviewed them with the instructor on the way to the dive site. One of my electives was "Peak Performance Bouyancy." (Yes, you know where this is going...) I giant-strided off the boat to do my bouyancy training dive and forgot my weights on the boat. Doh!

[cornfed]

I giant-strided off the boat to do my bouyancy training dive and forgot my weights on the boat. Doh!I discovered how badly overweighted I was the same way. I forgot my weight belt one time and still managed to get down. It was a struggle and I would drift up ever so slowly but it was a real eye opener.

[Big-t-2538]

Ahhh....funny stuff...

MY roomate at one time made a trip to europe where she decided to dive during her travels.

They asked her how much lead she needed and she of course replied with 22 or whatever it was that she wore at that time.

Well, the gave her 22....22KG that is. She said her back never hurt more during a dive.

[cancun mark]

I used to work on livaboards in Australia and week after week, I would get a kick out of seeing the (mainly) European and Japanese clients mistake Vegimite for chocolate spread.

Hotcakes with vegimite and whipped cream.............ummmmmmm. It still brings tears to my eyes thinking about it.

The Europeans would generally laugh or complain loudly, and the Japanese (bless 'em) were too polite, so would descreetly pretend that it wasnt their plate and go and either puke over the side or get some more breakfast, depending on their constitution.

.

[MikeFerrara]

My wife and I went to a local quarry to practice some drills for one of her tech classes and my IANTD instructor course.

She was going to do valve shutdowns so I thought I'd do mine at the same time to move things along quicker...bad idea.

She shut here right post down and switched to her backup while I did the same. She switched back to her primary and shut down her left post...without turning her primary back on.

She came to me to take my primary but it was off.

She was turning blue so I gave her my backup which was on a short hose and a necklace. The necklace didn't want to come off so I slipped over my head knocking my mask off.

There we were with 400 cu ft of gas between us, only one reg(on a very short hose) breathable and my mask was gone. I had visions of them finding us drowned at 20 ft with tons of gas and everything turned off.

My son was hovering right there watching us but when he realized what was going on he started laughing too hard to do anything. he laughed so hard I thought he had a free flow or something.

Of course I just reached back and turned my primary back on but that was hard to do because she was in the way.

Oh and we had decompression bottles with us that were breathable at that depth so I guess we had more like 560 cu ft of gas. I guess she liked my regs better anyway.

[jrtonkin]

While out diving a small, cottage-surrounded, lake we happened to swim past a couple of golf-balls. I was feeling a little silly, and since we weren't on any sort of achieve-the-objective dive, just putting in some U/W time and having fun, on a "I wonder if I can..." I started juggling them. A moment later my buddy looks back to see what's holding me up, and I think she nearly laughed her reg out of her mouth.

Jamie

[MikeFerrara]

While out diving a small, cottage-surrounded, lake we happened to swim past a couple of golf-balls. I was feeling a little silly, and since we weren't on any sort of achieve-the-objective dive, just putting in some U/W time and having fun, on a "I wonder if I can..." I started juggling them. A moment later my buddy looks back to see what's holding me up, and I think she nearly laughed her reg out of her mouth.

Jamie

We like to play catch with bowling balls underwater.

[MikeFerrara]

My poor wife again...

So, I was teaching an Advanced Nitrox class. It was a hard class and lasted like most of a whole winter.

toward the end when every one could actually almost dive, we planned to drop over the buss at Gilboa, do last minute checks and then drop over the wall and get some depth.

There was two students myself and my wife. My wife zipped right on past the top of the bus all the way to the bottom. I kind of flashed a "question sign as she sailed past and the student who was her buddy just kind if shrugged his shoulders and followed here.

I followed with the other student and there she was...on the bottom on all 4's with my student hovering there with a puzzled look on his face.

She was not only breathing but I thought I heard her saying bad words into her reg.

I asked her if she was ok and she said no. I offered her air. She said more bad words and pointed over her shoulder. At first I thought..."yes, you have tanks just like the rest of us but what are you doing?"

That's when I saw the problem. We were using Zeagle bc's at the time and they have a pull dump. Well, the whole valve had come apart and everytime she tried to inflate the wing a big plume of bubbles came up from behind her shoulder.

I lifted her up to the line (she was heavy with full doubles and decompression gas) figuring she'd put some air in her dry suit and we could follow the line back. I guess she wasn't ready yet because when I set her on the line and let go she just flipped around to the under side of the line and said more bad words into her reg.

Boy that was a long class.

[bbiesenkamp]

I dropped down in about 8 ft. of water on my first dive with a new camera setup. I look left and see a 3-4 ft. Ling a few feet away. How much better can it get than this? As I'm turning my camera on, the Ling hits my left arm. I roll around as she goes behind me. I'm still trying to get the shot. She hit me in the back..then the leg...then grabs my fin. I end up kicking her in the head as I swim away from my dream shot. I didn't see another thing worth shooting for the rest of the dive, but I learned an important lesson about disturbing egg nests.


Brian

[Rick Inman]

In 1971, on a boat to Catalina Island, the LDS owner got everyone’s attention and did a loud commercial for a new fangled thing called the AtPac. It's Push Button diving, he told us, no more blowing into the BC to inflate it. The BC is all on your back and it incorporates the plastic backplate right into the unit! And instead of a weight belt, you fill this chamber in the back plate with shot and marbles.
Wow, we all said.
With everything all as one unit, he said, you just inflate the thing, toss it all into the water, jump in, lift it over your head and go diving.
Wow, again.
And with that, he picked up the unit and threw it overboard, where it promptly sank to the bottom at 250'. Oops. He forgot to inflate it. We dragged for a while, but it was never found...

[cancun mark]

there is a situation I see often while training open water instructors.

An instructor has a pair of "student" divers in front of him. the diver on the right is told to do an alternative air source exercize.

The "student" has been assigned the problem to take the reg out of the other students mouth, not the octopus clipped to his chest.

the instructor notices that the "student" on the left has no reg, so in his rush donates the one from his mouth not his octy.

The instructor checks both "students" and knows that something is wrong, but cant figure out what it is as both students have regs, albeit not their own.

The instructor realizes that what is wrong is that he doesnt have a reg, so grabs the alternative from the "student" on the right as this was the last one he was looking at when he realised.

This forms a perfect triangle of three, each breathing from someone elses regulator.

when they realise how silly they look, all three regs get spat out and then no-one has a reg.

cracks me up every time I see it. At this point I usually shake my head and swim away.

.

[JimC]

5th dive after open water. There I am swimming around in 30 feet of water and I go to dump some air out of my BC. I reach up and grab the inflator and give is a nice firm tug to activate the oh-so convineint pulldump.

Hose came off in my hand, bubbles everywhere.

Since I was diveing wet, I crawled back to shore.

[ZenSquirrel]

I was doing the search and recovery dive of my AOW. We were supposed to swim a search pattern, eventually find a 20 lbs box and recover it to the surface. Viz was about 3-4 ft in most places and 1-2 in some patches. My Instructor and I set off on the search pattern swimming side-by-side about Viz distance apart and scanning the bottom. We came up on a submerged satalite dish. With some poor buddy communications, he went over, I went around, Hey! Where's my buddy, 1 minute to look, then a surface. Ah, he is 50 feet away. Not only did I not find the box, I lost my buddy!

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Another "incident". I was doing a fun dive with one of my regular buddies and my Instructor that I did OW with. We happened to pass a toilet submerged in about 80 feet of Lake. I guess my OW Instructor's wife has him well trained because he had to stop and put the seat down.

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Doing a night dive with another buddy in the lake. We were in a scuba park with a bunch of sunk boats and platforms. The vis is usually low so there are lines run between most of the items. We were following a line when suddenly my buddy stops, looks at me with huge eyes, frantically signals to turn around, and jets off at 110% thrust back the way we came. After we surfaced I asked, "What was that?" Turns out that she got it in her head that somebody had strung a line to the intake port of the dam and that we were going to get sucked though the dam turbine!

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My buddy and I were doing a 3 minute safety stop and we were just hanging out looking around while the time passed. Suddenly something wacks my ear hard. I figured that my buddy had gotten bored and given my ear a flick. I turned around to flick him back or to knock his mask off but he was 5 feet away looking at some critters. There was a school of perch floating around my head and some of them must have decided that my ears looked like a tasty treat. Needless to say I gave them a purge from my reg in return.

[aquaoren]

I used to work on livaboards in Australia and week after week, I would get a kick out of seeing the (mainly) European and Japanese clients mistake Vegimite for chocolate spread.

Hotcakes with vegimite and whipped cream.............ummmmmmm. It still brings tears to my eyes thinking about it.

The Europeans would generally laugh or complain loudly, and the Japanese (bless 'em) were too polite, so would descreetly pretend that it wasnt their plate and go and either puke over the side or get some more breakfast, depending on their constitution.

.
:D this is really bad stuff for people that aren't used to it ;)

[ocpaul]

I was diving in Aruba a few years ago - it didn't seem too funny at the time, but I can laugh about it now.

1st story: I inadvertently packed my prescription mask in my check in baggage. Of course the mask was in shambles on arrival. I was forced to rent a standard diopter mask that was close to be able to dive. So far so good. However, on the first dive the rental mask blew out at 90'. Had to abort the dive since I had some serious problems with visibility. Of course my new found partner was greatly impressed!

2nd story: The next day dove in an area where an tourist submarine did its dives. We were warned to stay away from the sub. On our upcurrent leg we heard the sub approach from behind and had a good time waving to those in the sub. On our downcurrent leg the we heard the sub again, but couldn't locate it due to reduced viz. Before I knew it the sub was heading right for me. I kicked my butt off to get clear of the sub, leaving my buddy alone. Again he must have been really impressed. Good thing the DM saw it all happen and he adopted my buddy while I headed for the boat with the rest of the group.

3rd story: On our last dive I was handing my fins up to the boatman and he whiffed on one of the fins. It being negative, it sank and nobody saw it on the way down. A fitting end for the dive days from hell!

[Snowbear]

...mistake Vegimite for chocolate spread.
What is Vegimite?

[AbsolutWeezer6]

Vegimite is a vegtable yeast extract. It kind of looks like chocolate spread as was said in the previous post but it has a very very unique taste. Kind of salty and its just like regular condiment you would spread on bread or stuff like that. Its an Australian food, when I came over here to study at orientation they made one of the other americans eat a piece of bread with a nice big thick layer of it......he was rewarded with beer, but some of the other Americans I came with can't even look at it to this day with out getting sick. My diver instructor acctually threatened us with a spoon full of vegimite if we were screwing around durring the open water dives :11: .

Cheers
Vinny

[aquaoren]

To the amusement of all diver present, I did once a giant stride from a dive boat with my mask still around my neck.

[MikeFerrara]

I saw a diver sit in shallow water to put his fins on because he had trouble reaching his feet any other way.

After his fins were on he rolled over onto his hands and knees...but now his head is under the water so he starts to strugle doing everything except anything that would help.

We had to run over and get him out.

[cancun mark]

What is Vegimite?

Snowbear, you poor deprived child.

Vegimite is a salty black yeast based spread put on toast that makes New Zealanders the greatest Rugby players, sailors, divers and lovers in the world.

If Alaskans had Vegimite, the world would know that Texas is not the largest state in the union.


.

[edwinh]

Vegimite is a vegtable yeast extract. It kind of looks like chocolate spread as was said in the previous post but it has a very very unique taste. Kind of salty and its just like regular condiment you would spread on bread or stuff like that. Its an Australian food, when I came over here to study at orientation they made one of the other americans eat a piece of bread with a nice big thick layer of it......he was rewarded with beer, but some of the other Americans I came with can't even look at it to this day with out getting sick. My diver instructor acctually threatened us with a spoon full of vegimite if we were screwing around durring the open water dives :11: .

Cheers
Vinny

This may sound wierd... but I kinda like Vegimite. =) On the same note, I would prefer Marmite to Vegimite. It tastes much better.

[edwinh]

To the amusement of all diver present, I did once a giant stride from a dive boat with my mask still around my neck.

I do that quite often... but on purpose. Its a convenient way to get the mask a quick wash for the saliva/shampoo/sea drops/whatever else was used.

[cdiver2]

Nearly done the giant stride a couple of times with my sunglasses on.

[ianr33]

Marmite is the Nectar of the Gods. Vegemite is a feeble Australian imitationThis may sound wierd... but I kinda like Vegimite. =) On the same note, I would prefer Marmite to Vegimite. It tastes much better.

Marmite is made from beef extracts. Vegimite is the vegetarian form of Marmite.

[DBailey]

In the quarry that I did my open water dives, there is a large population of aggressive blue gills. The people that run the quarry, also sell fish food that comes in these little brown pellets (probably just dog food). It so happens that the mole on my cheek is the same size and color as the "fish food".

Any time that I was still, like at the platform watching other students do their skills, the fish would start to attack the mole. I couldn't figure out what was going on. For the first dive, the instructor spent most of the time trying to wave the fish away. During the surface interval (which allowed the bleeding to stop as well), the instructor told me that he was guessing the fish thought it was food.

For the second dive, I spent a majority of the time with one hand on my cheek to cover the mole. Any time that I had to do a skill, one of the DMs would swat the fish away.

The next day, I showed up with a neat little circular bandaid over the mole for the last two dives. This stopped the "fish attacks"; however, it did create a nice circular tan line on my cheek.

[aquaoren]

This may sound wierd... but I kinda like Vegimite. =) On the same note, I would prefer Marmite to Vegimite. It tastes much better.

Marmite is made from beef extracts. Vegimite is the vegetarian form of Marmite.
Where does Marmite come from?
I'd be interested to try it :D

[ShakaZulu]

Where does Marmite come from?
I'd be interested to try it :D
Ok, now I'm familiar with it, we have Marmite in South Afrika, actually miss it. Marmite and cucumbur sandwich......

http://www.thebritishnook.com/index.html?target=p_3562.html&lang=en-us&OVRAW=marmite&OVKEY=marmite&OVMTC=standard

[The Kraken]

When I was working on my OW I was wearing an old farmer john that I had purchased some time around 1973.

Well, the DI told us to remove our wetsuits to do our swimming requirement, whatever it was, can't quite remember . ..

Well, anyway I told him that I thought he really didn't want me to do that, not going into great detail why, but he insisted.

So, when the rare, ellusive moon fish showed its face as my farmer john started crawling down the pale landscape of my buttocks, the DI concluded that, no, it really wasn't necessary for me to remove my wetsuit and swim.

Too bad, all the ladies in the class were waiting with baited breath . . .

[cancun mark]

So, when the rare, ellusive moon fish showed its face as my farmer john started crawling down the pale landscape of my buttocks,
.

Hence you screen name.........

[The Kraken]

You are a quick study, young man !!!!

[TCDiver1]

You dive long enough and they start adding up eh Mike?

We were doing an ice dive and one of our LDS owners was trying a new drysuit with a new dry glove wrist cuff system.

We get to depth and he starts screwing around,trying to grab something on my kit. As he is reaching up toward me, the air in his suit rushes up to his open, grabbing hand and poof his dry glove pops off and goes wizing by my face.

The look on his face was priceless. 98.6 to 36 degrees in zero seconds. :11:

[MikeFerrara]

Another ice diving story...

I was teaching an ice class at a local spot. The ice was kind of thin so I put my hole by a drop off where we could do a shore entry.

Another shop was doing a class and they went out on the lake. We have a picture of out on the lake a ways watching them go li..."hey where are you nute going!"

A while later one of the owners of the shop came over and asked if he could dive through out hole with us because his group was crazy. He said that he'd even be willing to dive with my students so I wouldn't have to do so many dives. Ice classes are brutal if you have more than 2 students and your the only instructor.

Well, it's a good thin they all had dry suits on because a bunch of em fell through.

One of my students was doing the class for the second year in a row. LOL Anyway he did fine up until the last dive. He was heading for shore, getting shallower and shallower but not turning around. I decided to just watch and see what he'd do.

Som of a gun if he didn't run himself right out of water. He swam right up to shore and didn't notice until he hit his head on the ice.

The year before he refused to let the tenders keep the line tight. He kept wanting to collect into a big ball. Then he would get himself all tangled up in it. Once, I thought we were going to have to tow him out and cut him free. he looked like a ball of yarn with a mask on.

[MikeFerrara]

Reels lines and lift bags always make for some interesting events.

On one of the last dives in the first Advanced nitrox class that I taught was on the deep end at Gilboa.

The plan was simple. We were to go down the line under the dock and then over for a tour around the truck and then over to the rope ladder. At 70 ft the students were to deploy lift bags one at a time.

Comming back from the truck they ended up closer to the dock than the ladder so I signalled for them to start their ascent there.

It took a minute to figure out what was pulling on the lift bag lines after they were deployed. As it turned out other divers were comming in behind us and I had my two students deploy their bags right into their bottoms. I guess it gave them a real start. Goosed em good!

The next day my IT called to ask how the class went. I told him it could have been better. You could tell he was scared wqhen he asked what happened. I told him and he laughed til I thought he was going to cry.

[roturner]

Had a buddy with a failed BCD. We were about 10 min from shore and since he couldn't make an ascent without dropping his weights we decided to make for shore over the bottom. It still makes me laugh when I think of him walking over the bottom like a moon walker on the tips of his fins.....

R..

[Wristshot]

My best dumb one was the first water entry from a small 6-pak boat in Cozumel. It was the first time I ever did a back roll entry. I arched a little too much, had a little too much air in the BC, and I surfaced strongly with the top of my head striking the center of the keel of the small boat. With vigor I might add. That was an eye-opener and a star generator.

Then I topped it off by crashing into the bottom of the inside of the boat when I climbed back in. I climbed up the ladder, the type that pivots at the edge of the side of the boat. Once you climb beyond a certain point, the ladder becomes top-heavy, and it will pivot inward, dumping you on your face if you aren't holding on to a non-pivoting structure. Wish someone had briefed me on that part. I did a perfect "mask-plant" on the bottom of the boat. I ended up with my face on the floor, my legs up over the ladder, 45 degrees above me, with a AL80 tank trying to enter the back of my skull. Lots of things hurt, including my pride. I learned a lot that day!

I was staying wet, but believe me, it wasn't purdy!

Wristshot

(UP - I just love that tag line!)

[Wristshot]

My buddy Dennis has had a couple of interesting weight related incidents. Dennis is very bouyant by himself, with 14mm of Henderson Gold Core, he needs a metric tonne of lead to submerge. His 40 lbs would fit in his Oceanic Chute II BC, but it was a bear to handle, and he had trouble loading the weight pouches.

During our final OW check out dive at Lover's, we were supposed to submerge at the dive float, and then swim along the bottom, navigating to the shore. Dennis and the Assistant Instructor descend rapidly to about 30 feet, with maybe 10 foot viz at best. I am following slowly as I need to equalize and descend slower than he does. When I get down, I can't find them. Brief search, then head up to locate them. He is swimming at the surface, with his first stage at his ear. I tell him that something looks wrong (dive 4 remember) and he says that he lost a weight. I am thinking he means one of the 2 lb clip-ons the instructor added, so what is the big deal?. After swimming to shore, he tells me he lost his weight pouch with 15 or 20 lbs in it. While descending, it simply fell out. We assume that the funky "locking mechanism" (and I use that term loosely) just wasn't really locked in. When the Instructor swims to shore, he is towing the dive float (with the extra clip on weights etc etc etc) and a Lift Bag. We had no idea what was going on. He hoists the lift bag to show the Oceanic weight pouch and says "did you lose something?".

It turns out that he was at the bottom unscrewing the anchor screw for the dive float when my buddy's weight pouch landed on his back. He simply floated it back to shore. Saved my buddy a bit of hassle and expense.

-------------
My buddy's best one was a couple months later on a private boat dive in Monterey. He was tired of wrestling with the 40 lbs in the BC, so he got a weight belt to carry some of it. We were on Greg's boat, our much more experienced friend. That dive was Dennis and Greg and I was minding the boat. Greg always wanted to be real "helpful" but sometimes the results were a little different.

Dennis surfaces, and I reach down to accept gear to be handed up. He is hanging at the platform, trying to catch his breath and gather himself. He has his legs spread real wide, because he has no hips, and the weight belt is trying to head south. He is struggling to hold on, and to figure out how to yank the weight belt back up high enough to stay on him. I am willing to help, but basically worthless from my location. Greg is still barely under the surface watching, but not understanding. Greg decides to "help" by removing Dennis' fin. Dennis is yelling at me that Greg is yanking on his leg, and it is going to make him drop the weight belt. Of course Greg can't hear us because he is underwater. He finally surfaces to hand me the fin, and we tell him to stop helping, because Dennis is struggling with the slipping weight belt. Greg drops the fin, re-submerges to assist with the weight belt. I almost go in myself reaching for the sinking fin. Again, he can't hear us because he is underwater.

It all was resolved eventually, but now Dennis was minus one Black Apollo Bio-Fin. Greg finally surfaced again, realized that he had dropped the fin, and that it did not float! He searched the bottom briefly with his remaining air before we gave up.

Now Greg knows what my mother has always pounded into our heads since I was a very young child; "Make sure your help is wanted before you give it!".

Of course Greg was sincerely trying to help, and he feels bad. Our local dive shop was willing to sell Dennis a single new fin because lots of people lose them out here. Everything worked out okay, and we have a funny memory of the day with Dennis spread-eagle screaming for Greg to stop helping.

Wristshot

Epilogue: Dennis has since bought a DUI Trim System and a Zeagle Ranger. The DUI holds some of the weight, and it can't fall off. The Ranger is easier to load the weight pouches, and never releases.

[simbrooks]

Have had a few beach or lake dives where we have chatted on the surface whilst kicking out, masks on backwards, then we get to the point we want to descend and put my reg in, grab my inflation hose, get a quick pre-equalize puff in my ears and down we go - opps forgot to put the mask on.

Also for some reason whilst losing some weight (went from 250 - 230#) my mask seems to have become a little large for me (yeh i know fat head) and realizing this during a dive that a small amount of water is coming in i try to clear (but of course instead of just clearing that little bit i decide to give my mask a rinse out and take it off before clearing it again). Problem is that i was trying to stay horizontal - this was not how we learned in OW classes (where i could clear my mask with ease being vertical) and so i am tilting my head backwards like i learned and start exhaling out of my nose, but the water is going nowhere. I give up in the end and just tilt my whole body more vertical and that does the trick as now i can actually look up (BTW i also have my DIN-yoke adapter on a rental tank, so that is impeding my ability to tilt my head back a bit). My instructor had a laugh telling me that he saw the water in my mask and me just puffing out air, but not clearing due to the way i was in the water. Another valuable lesson learnt, you tilt the mask downwards when horizontal to face behind you and get the water out that way.

On a similar dive at a local lake i have dove a few times (mostly instructional) with about 10-15ft viz that day, i was doing some skill practices, hear bubbles coming my way and see two people just about to run straight into me, drop as quick as my lung dumping would let me to be tillered over by their fins (they were in some kind of underwater race i reckon the speed they were going - dont know how many laps they did of the lake - it has to be a mile around the edges) whilst i was pretty much hugging the lake bottom due to dropping ~4ft in less than a second. A little after that on the same dive as we were ascending close to our dive flag, a group (i reckon about 10 students) were doing feet first descent as i was coming up horizontally from my safety stop. I get hit by about 4-5 of them as they are dropping like stones - like raining divers around me. Once i got hit the first time i started doing my best to look over my shoulder to avoid any others coming down - why were they descending on our flag and not somewhere else??? We laughed about these few events on the way out, but it was so frustrating to be pounded on those few times by people who werent watching where they were going! ;)

[plsdiver4377]

This one happened just this past Sunday at Lake Jocassee. Me and my buddy just wanted to get in a couple of relaxing dives, well we arrive and its raining cats and dogs.

So we're discussing the dive plan while we are gearing up, do our buddy checks as usual, and down to the water we go. Everything thing checks out (or so I thought), we start down and I puff a little air in my wing, shortly thereafter I start sinking a little faster than I thought I should. This goes on till we are in about 25' of water and realize what the problem is, I normally store my wing with the dump-valve off and stupidly forgot to put it back on while getting ready. My buddy is laughing through his reg whilst watching me swim up to stay off the bottom and put the thing back.

The other good one was in Florida, while diving the Outer Patches in the Keys. My wife and I are gearing up on our boat in fairly rough seas (3'+ swells) when a particularly large swell hit the boat just as I had started twisting the valve on my tank. My wife was just about pitched overboard at the same time, so being the loving husband I am I promptly helped her and forgot all about my tank. So we hurry and finish gearing up and jump in the water (to keep from gettin beat to death).

We checked everything except the most important, you guessed it, tank valvles. Well about 15 minutes later this little oversight came back and bit me square in the butt, my reg just stops delivering air. So I check my second and nope no air. I swim over to my wife who is about 10' feet away and fussing with her second because it was having an intermittant small free-flow, and I give her the OOA signal point to her reg to which she responds with a negative nod of her head. Well by this time the need for air is getting a little more urgent and I do all this again and again the same response. By now the urge to breathe is getting extremely urgent and I'm starting to get mad figuring she's forgotten all of her training and I'm strongly considering an ESA (we are only in 25' of water so not really a problem). I go through the motions one more time, and again no. Well this just doesn't cut it so I snatch her reg out of her mouth and she calmly puts her second in her mouth then proceeds to get thoroughly pissed at me for doing that to her till she realizes that I'm turning the valve on my tank so that I'll have air.

She kept saying no since she thought that I was wanting to know if she needed help with her reg since it was free-flowing slightly, thats how intent she was on the problem. So we both had to apologize to each other for our mutual stupidity, but it was a very valuable lesson learn, and funny now but not then.

[diverrick]

I kept forgeting to unhook the bungee from the tanks neck BEFORE I hooked up into the BC. First time it was ok, but after the third time, I had the whole boat rolling in the isles. They got to the point where when I got ready to gear up, no one would say a thing, and the boat would get REAL quite. they would all just wait for me to do it again. I just couldn't seem to remember that step for some reason on that trip. Pretty embarassing after the first time.

[jepuskar]

Bailey,

That sounds like Haigh quarry to me, those darn Blue Gills are something else. I love watching OW students reactions when you tell them your wearing a hood because the fish bite...and they aren't..lolol

My funniest moment happened my last dive in Cozumel a few months ago...we dove Colombia Shallows and the DM, which we got to know pretty well beforehand BTW, pointed out to small stingrays seemingly fighting....my buddy and I were like cool....so I started to get closer to take a pic and he taps me and tells me to back up...i gave him a look like why....he then.....

Takes his index finger on his right hand and proceeds to push it in and out of a circle he creates with his left thumb and index finger (stop for a second and do this) Yes, the international sign for, ummmm....yeah..you get the hint. His eyes got all big when he did it, the funniest thing...I laughed so hard...

Well, the stingrays swam away and he took off after them..now this guy has been diving Coz for well over 20 years, so I was like, this has got to be good for the DM to get all excited....so around a coral head we go and there they are...going at it like nobody was watching.....being the perverts my buddy and I are, we cant help but crack up underwater.....I was fighting so hard not to get water in my mouth...we watched for a couple minutes it seemed and they should no sign of letting up, made me feel jealous. ;)

What story like this would be complete without a pic?

http://underwaterpictures.net/love.jpg

Jason

[Xtreme]

I went to Destin, FL. this weekend and went out with some friends to dive the Ms. Louise, an old tug sunk years ago just off the coast of Destin at a depth of 55'.

On my first dive I went down on the anchor rope, which was positioned at the stern of the old tug, the visibility was about 20’ to 25’. Once down I proceeded around her stern and along her port side when all of a sudden I saw my first Octopus ahead of me.

I pulled my camera out of my BC, controlled my breathing and began stalking the Octopus to get close enough for a good picture. As I closed on the Octopus with my camera up and ready I noticed through the lens that it looked like no Octopus I've ever seen in books or on T.V. I lowered my camera and realized I had gotten all excited and stalked a plastic bag!!!

I looked to see if my dive buddy was watching me and fortunately he was preoccupied with something else. I picked up the bag, put it in my BC pocket and disposed of it once back onboard the "Aquanaut".

One day I'll find me a real Octopus, until then I guess I'll keep picking up bags...HEHEHEHEHE...

[tstiemerling]

Hah yes! Been there, done that. Usually one of the students is also briefed to either drop his weight belt or inflate his BC so he/she floats away. The IDC really was good fun!

This forms a perfect triangle of three, each breathing from someone elses regulator.

when they realise how silly they look, all three regs get spat out and then no-one has a reg.

cracks me up every time I see it. At this point I usually shake my head and swim away.
.

[DBailey]

Bailey,

That sounds like Haigh quarry to me, those darn Blue Gills are something else. I love watching OW students reactions when you tell them your wearing a hood because the fish bite...and they aren't..lolol
It was Haigh. The best part was there were three groups that day with my LDS. My group was the last one to do the skills, so I came out of the water with the other groups lounging around on shore. The trickle/stream of blood going down the side of my face was an attention grabber. There were some chuckles when I said it was the blue gills. Other people start telling tales of other blue gill attacks.

This past weekend at Haigh I was doing my AOW. I had my hood on so the facial attacks were not an issue. Being a warm day in a farmer john, I generally go suited up and in the water to cool off while I waited for the rest of the class (all drysuit guys). So I was waiting on the surface, and then all of a sudden, in raid succession, were some quick hits to my...ummm...groin area. With an epressive "WTF!!", my instructor was wondering if something was wrong. Long story short, I had a loose thread on the wetsuit in the crotch area, and the local blue gills were attacking the thread.

Some day I will get those blue gills.

[scuba-punk]

I was helping with a Rescue class and I was playing the part of the 'Lost Buddy.' One of my fellow DM's was along as my invisi-buddy. Well, it took the class quite a while to find us. We were hiding under a platform, so there wasn't an obvious stream of bubbles at the surface. After 5 minutes of wetnotes tic-tac-toe and hangman, we had to come up with something else to pass the time away. It started with trying to imitate whale-sounds (poorly), so poorly in fact, that we switched to the show tunes game. You start humming a theme song from a TV show and your buddy has to guess it by finishing the song. 10 minutes later we're laughing hysterically and then it got ugly. Let's just say that hacking quarry oysters through your reg will not only crud it up, but will cause your buddy to practically choke to death from laughing so hard :)

Granted, if we had started with the Quarry Oysters first, it wouldn't have been as funny, but when you and your buddy are swatting at it trying to hit the other one with it - kinda' like snot chicken - well, I've said too much already...

-Frank

[MikeFerrara]

I had two diver hang together, one of which was the lost victim and the other just a buddy.

When the students found them they grabbed the wrong guy...he resisted...but the students just though that I'd changed the excersize so they just weren't going to take no for an answer. It was a heck of a fight.

In one of my rescue classes I had a student invent a new method of towing an unresponsive diver. He found that placing a finger in each eye socket worked really well. We call it the eyeball tow. The only problem was that every one was afraid to work with him.

[MikeFerrara]

are difficult devices to lear for some.

I know a guy who never wears a hood no matter how cold the water is. He says that he can't hear the air going into his suit and can't control his buoyancy if he wears a hood.

I made him put a hood on one day cuz his ears looked like they were going to fall off. Sure enough he added air to his suit until he blew up like a balloon about to bust and shot to the surface.

I had forgotten what he's said about not being able to hear the air and asked him what happened and sure enough he said that he didn't think air was going in the suit because he couldn't hear it with the hood on. Oh well.

[Groundhog246]

My dentist also dives. He was diving a local quarry last year, regular jacket BC and weight belt. During his surface interval he was discussing BC's with another diver. When they were getting ready to go again, the other diver asked if he wanted to try his weight integrated BC. So sure he says and slip into it. Gets in the water and suddenly he's dropping to the bottom, hits the inflator and air is pouring out of the OPV. Still heavy and finning like mad he makes it to the bank and crawls out. Realizes on shore, he's got his 30 lbs weight belt on along with the other guys 24 lbs in the BC pockets. So 54 lbs of lead and about 30 some pounds of lift.
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Did a dive last year in the same quarry with my wife and a friend. We're about halfway along and suddenly when I inhale it's very wet wet. Spit the water out and gently try inhaling again, still very wet. Reach up to try purging and discover the only thing in my mouth is the rubber mouthpiece. Zip tie has let go. I carefull hold onto the mouthpiece and reach for my octo. As I'm reaching my wife (gotta love her) darts in with her octo in hand as she had seen the reg fall away. I waved her off and switched to my octo. Since we were in a max 25 foot deep quarry and diving with 3, I made the decision to continue the dive as there were still 2 available alternate air sources (as well , all 3 of us had been trained how to share a single reg). About a minute later the third member of our trio sees me with the bright yellow octo in my mouth and rushes over (I was diving on the left, with my wife in the center and the third member on the right, so we could not so easily see each other) to make sure I was ok. He was also new to diving at the time and after we were ashore could hardly believe I remained so calm about the whole thing that he hadn't noticed. (I'm sure by now he'd be every bit as calm).
Odd thing is, first dive in the same quarry this year, same reg set, had the exact same thing happen (they'd been serviced in between, so not the same zip tie).
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Also last summer, we dove the Conestoga for the first time. We had a good pre-dive briefing, except for how far out the wreck was. Seeing the engine sticking up well off shore, we expected a bit of a swim. So we entered, dropped and suddenly there's a 'rock' wall in front of us. After drifting a bit, see a missing plank and realize, that's not rock, it's zebra mussels on the wreck. So we relax and drift along. As I watch, my wife's hood has built up a bubble of air in the top. She reaches up a hand and squashes the air out and her mask slides up and off. Surprise! She appeared quite calm as we continued to drift (current) along and put her mask back on and cleared, but I do wish I had video of the rather surprised look when it popped off. More vents have been added to her hood.

[Robert Phillips]

Not really an actual "dive story" per se, but funny nonetheless.
I went into a dive store looking for 'wetnotes.' This is my first time in this shop and as I'm looking over the various dive trinkets I ask the man behind the counter, "Do you have wetnotes?" He looks at me kind of strange, so I explain to him what they are. He looks relieved and says, "Oh, I thought you said 'do you have wet NUTS'" Like it was some kind of dive shop prank.
You might have had to be there! :06:
Robert

[mrcharlie]

When i first started diving i couldnt wait to drop down under the water it was around my 15 th dive and i was feeling really confident so we all gave the ok and signaled to go down we dumped our air and went down i had forgot to put my reg in.

[Hammerhead]

What is Vegimite?

There's no such thing. It's Vegemite. And it's a half-decent Aussie sandwich spread.

Vegemite - Home (http://www.vegemite.com.au/vegemite/page?PagecRef=1)

Marmite, being British, is naturally far superior, but both languish in the shade of the true giant of the savoury spread world that is the mighty Bovril :signofcross:

Bovril UK (http://www.bovril.co.uk/)

Oh, and just noticed that I answered a question from 2004! Better late than never, eh?:D

[NWGratefulDiver]

Holy Lazarus, Batman ... this thread was dormant for almost six years ...

I tried Vegemite in Indonesia a couple years ago ... I guess it's an acquired taste 'cuz I thought it tasted like :turd:

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[TyGuy]

while diving at dutch springs me and my buddies were going down along the line looking for the WW2 bomber. and bottom was all kicked up since it was late in the day and we had very little vis. i checked my depth and figured "were probably really close by now" right then i heard the sound of a muffled pain grunt, to look up and see my buddy taking the plane's propeller right where the sun dont shine...we were directly on top of the plan the whole time

[Herk_Man]

Vegemite is the scum left on the bottom of a beer vat when they are brewing beer. Unless you were raised spreading it on bread like peanut butter, most people think it really tastes like crap. But I love anchovies on my pizza, so different strokes for different folks.

[Herk_Man]

while diving at dutch springs me and my buddies were going down along the line looking for the WW2 bomber. and bottom was all kicked up since it was late in the day and we had very little vis. i checked my depth and figured "were probably really close by now" right then i heard the sound of a muffled pain grunt, to look up and see my buddy taking the plane's propeller right where the sun dont shine...we were directly on top of the plan the whole time

I'm a bit concerned about your use of the word, "taking."

:popcorn:

[OldNSalty]

I'm a bit concerned about your use of the word, "taking."

:popcorn:

Sounds like the plane was 'taking' him.

[ssidiv3r]

I was tagging along with a Deep class and towards the end of the dive at about 80 feet the instructor told the students to shoot their surface markers. Well, one guy in the class pulled out his reel and put air into the the surface marker without attaching it to the line. After it pulled him up about 10 feet he let it go and watched it rocket up, and then looked at the instructor with the "What now?" look. One of our other instructors was on the surface with a different class and kept it until we surfaced.